Craig NortonSt. Louis, MO

Artist’s Statement

My work is purposefully direct. Working with simple BIC pens I use a stippling technique to create highly realistic faces and hands, then assemble complex paper constructions to create large-scale installations. My process is very regimented; artwork is a compound word and I am very much in touch with the second half of that word as well as the first.

My work always concerns the social issue I am currently burdened with. In the past this has included racism, genocide, soldiers' mental states upon returning from war, and the rape and abuse of women and children in Darfur.

My most recent work was influenced by a conversation I had with a woman In my church. She approached me to do a portrait of her son, who was shot to death two blocks from my house. Between my hours-long conversation with her, conversations with the six young men I mentor in my neighborhood, and the recent shooting murder of a friend, gun violence emerged as the obvious subject matter for my next installation.